As you can see, the 'elapsed' value has not incremented. In fact, it remains static between track changes until I disconnect/reconnect. Then the pattern repeats with the info. that is current as of the time I issue the first STATUS of a telnet session.

Just in case "21.4" means "MPD 0.21.4": your MPD version is ten bug-fix releases behind and thus unsupported. If this still occurs with the latest version, write a bug report, and provide more information. (Why do you believe the elapsed time should change? You did not mention that you're currently playing something, for example.)